2014, Onwards and Upwards.

It is Human Nature to look back at this time of Year and see if we have achieved the goals we set ourselves 12 Months ago, it is also a pretty good habit that should not just be engaged once a Year.

A well used Lateral thinking technique is to reassess everything you think on a regular basis {usually 3 months} to see how you are progressing, if it is still useful and relevant, to see if you are still on track and of course to realise that you have actually completed the task, sometimes we just do not notice this for a long, long time.

In the past when I have asked my Wing Chun Students if they have made progress that they are happy with I usually get an answer something like “Kind of”, “I think so” or even “I am not really sure”.

If we ourselves do not think that we have progressed can we really be progressing?

I think the reason Students are unsure is simply bad documentation.

This Year make a note of what you know about a couple of Specific things, and then next year, or even better in 3 or 6 months, you can read it and see if it is the same thinking.

Make yourself a little questioner along the lines of the one below {but choose subjects more in line with your own level of understanding} fill it in and then put it away for a while, in this way you will have a clear indication of where you where and how you thought.

1. What is Siu Nim Tao?

2. What is the main learning objective in Chi Sau?

3. What is the relationship between the first and second forms of Wing Chun.

4. What do we mean by the terms “Do not use Brute Strength” and “Avoid Force”?

5. Why do we wish to avoid Muscular Tension?

I am sure you get the idea, you can have as many questions as you like but more than 8 starts to feel like Homework, keep the answers brief, this will be a challenge in itself, and write down what comes to mind without too much thinking, our first answer is very rarely correct but it is usually what we genuinely think, and if we are planning on improvement it is this thinking that we need to address.

The answers themselves are unimportant, as your training progresses they will change anyway, but sometimes just writing stuff down helps you see it more clearly.

Never loose sight of the fact that all “Training” is to help us to become better and not an opportunity to show ourselves / someone else how good we are, so keep your Goals small and achievable.

Becoming better is not something that has a use by date, it goes on for ever.

Most importantly do not make any silly statements like “I am going to train more this year, or I am going to put more in to my training this year” these things always backfire and cause fall out.

The very fact that you are telling yourself that you are going to do more training next year means that at some level you are telling yourself that you did not do enough training last year, you are telling your Subconscious that you let yourself down, this is negative self talk that goes nowhere that you wish to go.

If some how you do feel that you did not do enough understand that you did all that you could do under the circumstances, there was a reason that you did not train very much last year, and if you do not find out what it was and remove the problem, it will be the same reason that you will not train very much this coming year.